


Bigfoot Boogaloo

by SeafoamPetals



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Comedy, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, au i guess post enter the florpus dib is an adult and they are friends that hunt crpytids, rated t for swearing and minor bear related violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 08:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20423126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeafoamPetals/pseuds/SeafoamPetals
Summary: Dib and Zim are like the Scooby Doo Mystery Gang expect if the meddling teens were one impulsive adult and the talking dog was an alien banished to Earth. After hearing about a Bigfoot sighting in Northern Washington, Dib has dragged his alien friend to go and find out the truth.





	Bigfoot Boogaloo

It had been eight years since Zim mellowed out, well as much as was possible, he wasn’t looking to take over the earth anymore. Dib was 23 and the two of them were now friends, friends enough where Zim has agreed to go on multiple trips helping Dib with his exploits in hunting cryptids. There was a real irony to the fact that to prove the existence of the paranormal all Dib had to do was snap a picture are the alien in his RV and upload it to the internet. Unfortunately, a stunt like that would most likely result in Zim getting dissected in a shady government lab, and as Dib was now an adult with a moral compass instead of an edgy tween, that just wouldn’t do. Rivals became friends, and somehow that means chasing after sightings of cryptids for Dib’s blog together, and after a lead on a Bigfoot sighting in northern Washington they were deep in the Pacific Northwest.

Dib scrolled through video footage from one of the cameras he set up in the forest the previous night, it was a tedious effort, pausing when a shape appeared in the darkness only to be nothing. He took a sip of coffee. A mug with text on it reading “Bigfoot’s real and he tried to eat my ass,” a joke gift Gaz gave him last Christmas. Zim hated the mug because he didn’t understand what a single word of what that statement was supposed to mean. Dib looked over to the alien who was furiously trying to scrub sap from the bottom of one of his boots. He slowly felt the coffee waking him up, Dib had woken up early to collect the cameras and see if any of the night’s footage was fruitful. So far nothing, but then.

“THERE! That’s gotta be-“ Dib shouted frantically only for his voice to fall, “Oh come on seriously a bear, a big bear but it’s just a stupid bear.”

“What’s the bigged foot even supposed to look like anyway?” Zim asked finally picking off the last of the pine needles sticking to his boots.

“A big ape-like creature, bipedal, covered in fur, large feet obviously.”

Zim scurried over and watched Dib scroll through more footage of a bear pacing about, when it stands on its hind legs he pointed saying “There, bipedal and covered in fur. Truly I am amazing.”

“That’s not what… it’s an ape it would look more humanoid. We know what bears are, they’re…” Dib waved his hand “there BEARS I don’t know how else to explain it other than that’s not Bigfoot!”

Zim blinked “Didn’t you try to bring a bear home once?”

“Huh?” Dib coughed, chocking on his coffee.

“Gaz told the almighty Zim that you, in her words, ‘Brought a bear home from the club’ whatever that means.”

“WHAT NO? And why would you listen to her?”

“Because she’s smarter than you, Dib-Stink.”

“She is not…” Except that she is smarter than him and Dib knew it, and that was because she had something Dib lacked. Common sense.

Dib finished his coffee in a huff and stood up to go put on a pair of hiking boots, he tossed a pink child sized hoodie at Zim who hissed as it hit his face. “Come on we have to go set the camera’s in a new spot.”

Dib could tell that while Zim wasn’t necessarily a fan of another trek through the forest’s rough terrain he enjoyed that the air and water wasn’t polluted like it was near cities. There was also an obvious curiosity towards the different types of organisms living here as plant life alone was foreign to Irken’s due to their habit of obliterating all organic life on a planet’s surface. Though his curiosity at Earth life didn’t stop him from cussing out the ivy that tripped his feet, he disentangled himself with a slew of promises that Earth will burn. Those were empty promises now.

_

Dib found patches where he could hide cameras in the ferns and tree branches all while getting a clear unobstructed view. He dusted dirt off his jeans and gave a thumbs up to Zim who was fixing the last tree mounted camera. The alien crawled down with his PAK’s spider legs.

“All right that’s all of them,” Dib said as he fished out a handheld camera, “But maybe we can still find this guy in the early morning, I’d prefer to get some evidence of Bigfoot in the daylight. And some still photos too.”

“Question for Dib, how long will we be looking for the bigged foot in this stinking forest?”

“Oh well as long as it takes to get evidence that either Bigfoot is real or that the reported sighting was a dud.”

The alien groaned, because that answer could mean that this will take the rest of the day or to the end of Dib’s life. Dib waved his hand at the exasperated Irken in a halfhearted attempt at reassurance.

“Don’t look at me like that, here, I bought something that could speed up this process,” Triumphantly he pulled out-

“A… whistle?”

“Not just any whistle, Zim! This is supposed attract a Bigfoot! Or at least that’s what it said online…”

He blew on the whistle; it was noiseless to his initial disappointment but looking down he watched Zim cover the base of his antenna. His zipper like teeth grited and eyes squeezed shut.

“STOP! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!”

“Well that was different than I expected, sorry about that I didn’t realize it would be irritating to you.”

“All sounds on this filthy planet are irritating to the superior hearing of ZIM!” He opened his large red eyes, still scowling. He lifted his gloved claws from the top of his head letting his antenna twitch and readjust “But that one, most HORRIBLE.”

Dib sheepishly put the whistle away, feeling bad that he had caused harm to his friend. He looked around the small clearing, kicked a stick, listened to the morning bird calls. Nothing. Nothing was coming. No stomping sound one might expect to accompany a creature labeled ‘Bigfoot’.

Zim’s antenna twitched, he was picking something up. Before Dib could ask him what it was a shadow fell over them both. They froze, Dib could fell hot breath at the back of his neck, accompanied by a low growling noise. Then blaring right in his ears was the booming roar of a bear. They flinched and backed them selves up against a pine tree, now able to get a good glimpse at the gargantuan grizzly in front of them. Even on all fours it was obvious to Dib that this wasn’t your average bear, it had to be at least 6 feet tall at the shoulder. And then it stood up, as big as two Dib’s standing on each other’s shoulders.

**Shit**

Flight kicked in for both of them, Zim getting a head start as his PAK shot out the spider legs and he scrambled up the tree screaming all the way. Dib screamed too, grabbing for the nearest branch to start hoisting himself up on. The bear lunged but only caught the end of his black trench coat. Dib gave a hearty kick to its nose before it could drag him down. The bear took a chunk of fabric with it that was nearly his flesh. He made it up a few more branches, but the bear was attempting to follow pursuit snapping branches at the base as it sunk its claws into bark and began to climb. A claw made it to the branch Dib was on and the wood began to crack. Zim still screaming, shot the bear with one of the lasers equipped to his PAK legs. Then again. Then a few more times for good measure until the bear backed off and lumbered down the tree. It snorted, blood dampening its fur from the laser inflicted wounds, its roared at the tree its prey was hiding in before turning away. Dib made it up to the branch Zim was on, joining his little green friend. For a minute they sat wordlessly in an attempt to catch their breath.

“WAS THAT THE BIGGED FOOT? WAS THAT THE BIGGED FOOT?? WAS THAT THE- “

“NO, NO IT WASN’T BIGFOOT THAT WAS A”

Dib paused and his eyes darted in time with his racing mind “I mean maybe that was Bigfoot, not you know ACTUAL Bigfoot, but what if that’s what caused the sighting, MAYBE that’s what was mistaken for Bigfoot because that was… I don’t know what else but a Big Fucking Bear.”

They were both shaking, but tentatively and bravely Dib began to make his way down, Zim following behind him.

_

Sitting at a booth in a warm dinner at the town of Two Peaks, Dib and Zim sat both having a thousand-yard stare. Sure, near death situations were not at all uncommon to them. But it had been a long time since the days of Zim trying to destroy the Earth and humanity. The most life-threatening things got was one of Zim and Dib’s inventions going haywire or an extraterrestrial bounty hunter coming to collect Zim’s head. Plus, there was something unnerving about the threat coming from a creature of the Earth rather than something from space. Dib sipped his cheap dinner coffee and Zim caught an older, bearded man giving him a hard stare.

“I have a skin condition, DON’T BE RUDE!”

“Yeah man, he can’t help the way he looks, don’t stare at people who are different get with the times!”

The man grumbled an apology and turned away from the sheepishly.

“I told you, you have to get a better disguise,” Dib whispered.

“I see no issues with my disguise,” He grinned smugly, it was still the same wig and contacts from when he first arrived on Earth and somehow saying he had a skin condition was still enough to make people look the other way. The worst part was that now Dib contributed to the disguise by supporting Zim’s claim. If Dib traveled back in time and told his 11-year-old self that yes, one day you will be defending that terrible disguise from on lookers, he’s certain his past self would spontaneously combust on the spot.

“Here you go… Sirs?” Their waitress brought them their food and it was obvious she wasn’t sure if Zim was a small man or a child. An omelet for Dib and a stack of pancakes for Zim. His gloved hands rubbed together excitedly before digging in and making a mess of his plate. Though his PAK’s functions kept the need for eating at a minimum, Zim in his time adjusting to Earth had developed something of a hedonistic streak for Earth sweets. Dib had tried to get Zim to try vegetables and ‘healthy’ foods beyond sugar but as it turned out sugar was the core of Irken diets. They really were just overgrown insects from space.

“After we eat let’s get back out there and find that bear.” Dib heard Zim start to choke and then laugh.

“AHAHAHAHAHA THAT’S A FUNNY JOKE DIIIB, you almost fooled Zim there for a moment.”

“No, I’m serious. We might not have found Bigfoot, but we’ve found something NEW. Its some sort of megabear! We could call it The Ursa Major,” He sweeped his hand in a dramatic, starstruck motion. His previous horror from the bear’s chase had now turned to wonderment, he had stumbled onto a brand-new discovery. This could be a mutant bear caused by man’s hubris from polluting the Earth, or a remnant of ice age megafauna.

“But didn’t your primitive Earth camera’s record footage of the bear?” Zim reminded, hopeful to get out of another confrontation with the bear.

“Yeah but if I only present low-quality footage of the bear during the night people are going to tell me I faked it or that I’m overreacting. So, we must go out while it’s still light and take some photos of it, that way people can have a good idea of just how big the bear really is.”

“And that’ll mean getting the bear’s attention again.”

“Well obviously.”

Zim’s expression twisted into something that said _I wish the Tallest had ended me_. He clenched his hands and squeezed his eyes shut, as if that action could contain whatever outburst about to boil over.

“Here I’ll do you a solid, you can go back to the RV and I’ll go out and find the bear on my own. And if in the event the bear kills me, feel free to destroy the Earth.”

Zim folded his hands, seriously contemplating this offer. It would certainly be easier to just hang out in the RV and wait. He could probably check in on GIR to see if the robot had destroyed the base in his absence yet. Maybe tinker with his PAK a little. But it meant the possibility of leaving Dib, a weak, stupid human, to get mauled to death by a bear. Zim was a proud warrior of Irk and as he was despised by his own kind he might as well protect the one person who seems to appreciate his continued existence from marching to his doom by megabear.

“No, Zim will accompany you to find this horrible beast so that it doesn’t eat your big dumb head, because you’re my fr- “

Dib’s eyes beamed through his glasses; his smile widened.

“Frrrrrr”

Zim looked physically in pain like the word was acid on his tongue.

“FRIEND!”

He shouted out the word and took in deep breaths. Years ago, they had figured out a way to remove the Irken Control Brain’s encoding in his PAK’s data. This meant he was able to experience a full range of emotions uninhibited by programing. One of these dampened feelings was the ability to construct deep friendships and have loyalty to anyone person beyond tallest or the collective empire. However, malicious code out of the way, it didn’t suddenly get rid of the hundred plus years of social conditioning. It took a lot for Zim to admit he cared about anyone beyond himself.

“Great to hear that Zim, that’s the spirit! Well let’s stop burning daylight and find that bear!” Dib hailed the waitress to bring them some to-go boxes for their remaining meal. Zim dragged his feet as they left after Dib payed. Even Dib felt slightly apprehensive as his manic excitement over his discovery ebbed. But they both made their way back to woods, both too proud to admit they were regretting this decision.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey its been like a year basically since wrote a fic but I'm hyperfixating on Invader Zim right now and I think the idea of Dib and Zim eventually becoming weird friends to be really funny. Part two will happen at a time. Let me know if there are any spelling and grammatical errors I tried to take care of all the ones I can find.


End file.
